ROCHESTER — The city will soon study the feasibility of moving its dispatch operations to the county.

The regionalization of emergency dispatch services was suggested to the City Council by Mayor T.J. Jean Tuesday. During his presentation, he said Rochester now spends about $704,000 on having its own dispatch center, located at the police station. For next year, the proposed budget for dispatch services is $721,360.

Despite regionalization for dispatch services having been considered for many years, Jean said the plans never came to fruition, primarily due to the community opting to have more local control of essential services. But with escalating personnel costs and budget for the dispatch center, “We need to start looking at doing things differently,” Jean said during his presentation.

He said joining with the Strafford County Dispatch Center is a “low-hanging fruit” that could bring substantial cost savings.

The three Strafford County Commissioners have unanimous support for offering Rochester assistance in regionalizing dispatch services, said County Commission Chairman George Maglaras. He said that while the idea for regionalization is fairly foreign to New Hampshire, regionalization is implemented all over the United States.

Maglaras recalled that when Durham moved dispatch operations to the county dispatch center, the town saved about $250,000, with $2.5 million in anticipated savings over a 10-year period.

The Strafford County Dispatch Center currently dispatches for 10 towns in the county.

Maglaras said if the county begins dispatching for all 13 communities in Strafford County, “We can see a tremendous cost savings to taxpayers.”

After the council on Tuesday expressed support for exploring the idea of regionalization, city and county officials will begin looking at the assets of both the Rochester and Strafford County dispatch centers, in areas such as personnel, available equipment, and infrastructure. The County Commissioners will then brief the City Council on the cost the city would have to pay if it were to regionalize its dispatch services to the county. The commissioners’ proposal will then be independently reviewed to ensure cost savings to the city are realistic.